Windows XP Media Center problems [After Update Rollup for MCE 2005 (KB919803)]

Hi Mudd,

I have a much older Dell system, You're the expert here

Welcome to the world of giving advice

Regards - Charles

 

Mudd, Charles

Yes I am a she named Georgia.

And no I have not changed things as orignally configured. have a cd- r/rw as my boot drive and a dvd read write (also reads CDs) as my E drive. That is why I tried to get Dell to send me a CD for the OS but they refused.

 

Ma'am, you have the Disc you are wanting. The reinstallation disc is all you will get. There is no other disc with this 8400 system.

 

Hi Georgia,

Enjoy

We'll have an answer upon your return

Regards - Charles

 

Re

I meant that I wanted a CD instead of the DVD.

Please do not call me Ma'am

Will be anxiously awaiting your solutions as we sail away!

 

You are probably gone by now but will possibly read this upon return.

First: "Ma'am" is a show of high respect in the section of the US in which I reside. If this offends you I will not use the term again.

Second: You will NOT get a CD! DVD is the only option.

 

Hi Mudd,

After doing some searching on this and asking Dell support:

The answers I get is that you can't pick a secondary optical drive to boot off of.

What I would do is to physically switch the drives or if the ribbon is long enough, to change the attachment order.

Both my opticals are DVD's - the secondary the Burner, so this is a problem I wouldn't run into.

Regards - Charles

 

Giving all the respect to Dell that is due, Bull$hit! Mine was changed, by an old man that can't even remember what he did yesterday!!

I had this problem, the same as Georgia. I wanted to do a repair and couldn't get the DVD to boot. For all I've tried, I can't remember what I did to change the system. But I can now boot from a CD or DVD.

Dell's reply is strange. Consider this. Why do they send a DVD with the re-installation system on it if the PC can't be booted from a DVD? I've talked to Dell, more than once on this. They say they cannot send a CD as they don't have them, only the DVD. Asking about the boot question and I get blank stares over the phone (silence while they read their instructions).

There a lot of things I give up on due to my advanced age and mental capacity. This one I'll not do that. I'm going to work with this until I find the solution again. Hang on please. I AM going to post the procedure!

 

I recieved a PM from Mudd on how to change the boot ROM to the secondary optical device:

Setup refers to the boot section of the BIOS.

The following explains why Dell didn't supply an OS CD:

Mudd is facing surgery and a hospital stay and felt he may not be able to respond to followups.

My best wishes to Mudd and his family.

Charles

 

Charles and Mudd,

Buongiorno, Bonjour and ¡Hola!

Will try the boot change and let you know what happens. We just returned late last nite from cruise vacation in Europe. I had never been there before and highly recommend seeing the Mediteranean and all of its fantastic ports in Spain, France and Italy.

Mudd 2 things.
1. I apologize for feeling insulted by the "Maam ". Around here the only people who call me Maam are those who want to treat me as being old and that is why I took offense.


2. I hope you are recuperating nicely and feeling well and healthier.

Georgia

 

Hi Georgia,

Wondering how the problem with booting from the DVD turned out?

Regards - Charles

 

[SIZE= "2"]Sorry - have not had time to try - will definitely post when I do try it. Will probably be able to get to it in about 3 weeks or so.

Right now I am wrestling with the Blankety-Blank medicare Prescription drug plans to determine which one will be cheaper for me this year, as the one I had last year will no longer do.

In addition, I am helping some friends who are struggling with the entire Medicare , Medigap, Advantage, Plan D prescription plan situation as they are just about to turn 65.

The legislators etc who designed the program ought to be forced to try it for themselves. In addition, the Govt Medicare website is supposed to be a good one and easy to use, whereas in fact it is not. Whoever designed it needs to get some sort of help in testing the site out. I designed many more user friendly web sites (for internal use) when I was still working. I am very computer literate but I feel very sorry for the majority of seniors who have to cope with the entire design of this program.

Charles, sorry for venting but you just came in with your question at the wrong time. [/SIZE]

Georgia

 

Hi Georgia,

No problem - understand.

Good luck - Charles

 

I'm back -

I tried the following -

The problem is that in Setup there does not appear to be a way to change the boot drive.

I see under boot sequence
1. Floppy, 2. SATA HD (not present)
3. Online IDE (not present) 4. Intel Array 5. Onboard or USB CD relay
6. USB Device (not present)

Under the Drives under the Boot up section I see for the CD and DVD drives ( I'm skipping 1-3)
Drive 4. PATA-0 (my drive C. CD R) PRI IDE Master
and Drive 5: PATA-1 ( My drive D, DVD Drive) PRI IDE Slave

Nowhere do I find a CDROM Bootup or a DVD Bootup option.

My guess is that I should probably call DELL to get them to help me change the boot up drive ( am reluctant to do that because of language difficulties when calling tech support)
- I don't want to try to change the wires or swap the physical drives. I am a chicken when it comes to messing with the hardware by opening it up, even tho I do all sorts of things with the software. Of course I could go pay somebody to do this.

Any thoughts? I want my TV back.

Thanks,

Jorjab

 

Hi Georgia,

I didn't see your post or the PM until this morning, I just back from a 3 week+ vacation and this is the first time back on the Board.

I don't have any other ideas other than switching the ROM drives. I understand your reluctance to do it yourself. Considerig the benefits, I would pay to do it. If you do have it done, get an estimate and post it here. For someone that knows what they are doing, the process is 10 minutes - and that's high - or less.

Regards - Charles

 

Thanks Charles, hope you had a nice vacation.

I am trying Dell first to see if they can tell me how to change the boot drive in system set up or whatever. After all, one would think that if the operating system comes on DVD that they would set up the dvd drive to be the bootable one.

So far re cost Geek squad wants either $39 or $78 for the job of swapping. It depends on who I talk to and whether or not they consider it one or 2 hardware services. If I continue with this route, I will call other places or maybe even find a friend, not as chicken as I am, to do it for me.

Waiting to see what Dell says re doing it in the system set up.

Will post whatever I do and then try to get back to the original problem of my Media center TV set up.